Sunday 23 July 2023
It’s 07:26 and I’m in the midst of a yawn fest. Outside, it’s apparently 11°C and I don’t need an app to tell me that it’s raining, raining with determination. The plan for today is/was for my visiting friend Becky and I to make a start on the foundations for the cabin. Up to last night, she was still saying we’d do it today despite the forecast of rain all day. Now that I see the pouring rain and greyness, I am less convinced. It is also Becky’s birthday today, though I’ve known her long enough to know she is not particularly a birthday celebrator and anyway loves digging and doing outdoor work. We’ll see.
She arrived yesterday from Birmingham after a night in the Lake District; within an hour we were both head to toe in waterproofs, or so we thought. We then set off for the pub, half on the road, half on forest paths and through the marshes. It rained the whole time. We both discovered that our walking boots weren’t as waterproof as we’d thought, as revealed by long, wet grass and waterlogged ground. I then discovered that my waterproof trousers weren’t entirely waterproof. Ditto my waterproof jacket. On arrival at the pub, neither of us having worn a hat or hood, we looked like we’d walked for two-and-three-quarter hours in the rain. While the fifteen or so people in the pub played bingo, we sat drinking our pints at the bar, chatting quietly. My having foreseen the absence of mobile phone signal around the pub, we’d arranged with Chris to pick us up at 20:00, which he did, and we drove the twelve or so minutes back home, Becky and I marvelling over how far we’d walked. It was one of those walks that I feel like I needed, a proper long chat with a good friend, not a single other person around, bit of wind, a constant mist of rain and the trees, hills and greenery looking beautiful even with the rain.
Even though it’s been raining since yesterday, I’m going to check the water tank (wildly optimistic it will either be full or filling still/again) and inspect the ground we’re supposed to be digging. Who knows, maybe it’s easier to dig and level this kind of rocky soil when it’s waterlogged? At least I know that none of my waterproofs are quite up for the job though so can dress accordingly underneath them.